David Brian Pearce, a Los Angeles man who lured women into his orbit by claiming he was a Hollywood producer, was sentenced Wednesday to 146 years to life for the fatal overdose of a model and her friend, as well as the sexual assaults of multiple women over 16 years.
Pearce, 43, was convicted in February on two counts of first-degree murder in the overdose deaths of 24-year-old model Christy Giles and 26-year-old Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola.
Prosecutors said the pair died in November 2021 after meeting the self-proclaimed entertainment bigwig at a warehouse party in East Los Angeles. A few hours later, they accompanied Pearce back to his Beverly Hills home, where they were served a fatal cocktail of fentanyl, cocaine and other drugs.
Within about 35 minutes, Cabrales-Arzola called a rideshare service to leave the apartment, but neither woman got in that car.
Some 12 hours later, after being sexually assaulted, the women were carried out of the apartment and dumped outside separate hospitals about two miles apart.
Giles was already dead when she was dropped off, prosecutors said. Cabrales-Arzola was found unresponsive and placed on life support, but died 11 days later — just one day short of her 27th birthday.
The coroner later ruled the deaths a homicide, with both women having died from “multiple drug intoxication” and Cabrales-Arzola also dying from multiple organ failure.
In addition to the murders, prosecutors said Pearce also committed “numerous drug-facilitated sexual assaults” on at least seven other women between between 2005 and 2021. He was found guilty on three counts of forcible rape, two counts of penetration by use of force, and one count each of sodomy by use of force and the rape of an unconscious woman.
All seven of those victims, who came forward following Pearce’s arrest in December 2021, testified at trial, where many said he lured them to his apartment by pretending be a well-connected Hollywood insider, despite having no real credits to his name.
Pearce’s co-defendant in the case, actor Brandt Walter Osborn, is awaiting retrial after a previous jury couldn’t reach a verdict on two counts of being an accessory to murder after the fact.
Osborn is accused of helping Pearce to drop the women off at the hospitals after they overdosed at the apartment the men shared.
A new trial for Osborn is expected to begin with a pretrial hearing on Nov. 18.
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